One of the first games I was introduced to on the 2600 was River Raid, back in 1982. I remember it vividly, as I was at my cousin David’s house, who was older than me, and he’d “baby sit” me so the adults could have some adult time hanging out in the dining room. We’d sit in the family room playing 2600, mainly River Raid.
This is an Activision game, and was later ported to Atari 5200, Atari 8-bit, C64, ColecoVision, IBM PCjr, Intellivision, ZX Spectrum, and MSX. The player controls an airplane in a top-down view over a river and gets points for shooting down enemy planes, helicopters, ships and balloons (for versions after the Atari 2600). By flying over fuel-stations, the plane’s tank can be refilled. The player can shift side to side and change the speed of the plane. Sections of the river are marked by bridges.
The game was highly acclaimed for its ability to stuff tons of map into small amounts of space. The map was huge and it fit on the disk because it’s randomly generated using a common starting seed, basically, imagine some of the Diablo dungeons…they’re randomly generated but the starting seed which starts the random process is also ‘random.’ (probably based on clock time which isn’t too uncommon). Atari, rather than try to make a random level each time used the level random generator to build a procedural based level rather than drawing it and saving it into the cart. GENIUS.
A more highly randomized number generation system was used for enemy AI to make the game less predictable.
Germany consider this game harmful to children, indexing it on their list of games “harmful for children” along with the game Speed Racer. It remained on their list until 2002 (since 1984) when developers petitioned it off the list before the PS2 launch of Activision Anthology (otherwise they’d not be able to put it in the game)
Some of the Germany reasons: Minors are intended to delve into the role of an uncompromising fighter and agent of annihilation (…). It provides children with a paramilitaristic education (…). With older minors, playing leads (…) to physical cramps, anger, aggressiveness, erratic thinking (…) and headaches (wikipedia)
All in all, a great game! To hear all the details on River Raid and our opinions, checkout TD Gaming Podcast Episode 78.
Dead Rising is being ported to the Nintendo Wii, only two years after the original title. In Japan, they’ve changed the name to Dead Rising: Zombies Sacrifice, perhaps to make it sound like a different game.
Great episode and nice to see quick turn around for this!
@Indi Dev: Not sure there is much to add that hasn’t already been said. I hope that the Dev can fix his situation as Paul was pointing out it did seem like he was very unprepared for managing this. I still feel that this is a sign to be cautious with Kickstarter, but not out right abandoning it. As Jonah pointed out there were worse cases.
@Fallout 4: I am looking forward to this game, also FO series wasn’t always First Person perspective, it used to be Isometric like Wasteland 2. So for some Wasteland 2 is like having a Isometric Fallout 3.
I loved the trailer, the color scheme seems so much more alive than in FO3 and FO NV. I think I prefer a voiced protagonist so I am looking forward to that as well.
@Steam returns: I can see how this can be easily abused, however I too have a lot of games on my list some I want to play and some that I don’t have any intention of playing but got through others or through Humble Bundle. Also when games start being like $2 it’s really harder to feel that need to resist.
Now here’s a Question since it’s been awhile for a QotW: Which do you prefer a Voiced protagonist (or one that talks at least via text if not voice) or a Blank slate (Chrono, Link, Mario, etc)